FINRA Arbitrator Recommends Expungement Of Three Customer Complaints (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog) A sole FINRA Arbitrator tackles a thorny arbitration in which a registered person seeks the expungement of not one but three customer complaints. The resulting FINRA Arbitration Decision ends the year on a high note as it is well written, concise, and persuasive.

FINRA found that from March 2008 to June 2016, J.P. Morgan Clearing Corp. did not have reasonable processes in place to ensure that its possession or control systems were operating properly. Shares that should have been segregated were available for the firm's use, due to systemic coding and design flaws, recurring and unresolved deficits and unreasonable supervision. By failing to move and maintain securities in good control locations, the firm created deficits in foreign and domestic securities valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, J.P. Morgan failed to move Italian securities to a good control location for nearly two years, and on one sample day, created a deficit in 81 Italian securities worth approximately $146 million.

FINRA Wrestles With No Debt False Statement Versus Untrue On(BrokeAndBroker.com Blog) Wall Street's communications with the public have come under scrutiny in recent years and with good cause. You look back to the lead-up to the Great Recession and there were a lot of lies being told to unwary investors. Now, whether those investors should have been unwary is another question for another day but, for now, let's just say that there were a lot of folks pushing a lot of toxic crap on folks who were seen as easy prey. Not a pretty picture. All of which explains why there is an enhanced focus on how investment products are marketed online, on air, and during seminars -- not that it's a particularly effective line of defense but, you know, the Maginot Line looked like it would work, right? In a recent FINRA regulatory settlement, we see the best and worst of Wall Street regulation. On sound ground is the self-regulator's unhappiness with one guy's use of his personal email to engage in business communications. On less sound ground is the self-regulator's unhappiness with that same guy's statement to a client about whether an issuer had or didn't have any debt.

FINRA Expungement Arbitration Shows Failed System(BrokeAndBroker.com Blog) The BrokeAndBroker.com Blog's publisher Bill Singer, Esq. takes this last opportunity in the waning days of 2017 to rage against the machine and call for the reform of FINRA's failed expungement system. As Singer notes, the present appellate process by which Wall Street's men and women seek to clear their names is a bastard child no one claims as their own. Public advocates are correct that Wall Street's bygone practice of buying and selling indulgences was a disgrace that needed to be stopped. Similarly, the industry had ample warning of the need to tend to its own mess but chose to do nothing. Consequently, the present expungement process is an angry reaction to a persistent failure to reform. Unfortunately, the ensuing rush to judgment yielded what such angry efforts will: a lack of balance and fairness. For those industry men and women whose good name is besmirched by the mistaken complaint or the erroneous allegation -- no matter how few in number those innocent victims may be -- the relief is little more than a rigid system that takes too long, costs too much, and, in the end, sends the victor on an even more time-consuming and expensive route to the courts.

The Dead Father, Feuding Kids, Stockbroker In The Middle, And The Lawsuit (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog) As the warm, rosy hue of the holidays is fading, we are once again reminded of family. Ah yes, family! The aunts and uncles who don't talk to each other because of something that happened ten years ago but no one quite remembers exactly what. The cousins who you can't sit next to each other at the dinner table. The feuding siblings who manage to ruin every family get-together. The awkward silences brought on by the divorced folks who politely smile at each other through the entire meal for the sake of the kids but still get in a few shots. In today's BrokeAndBroker.com Blog we consider yet another family affair involving estranged kids and their father . . . their wealthy father . . . and a poor stockbroker who got caught in the middle. It ends for the stockbroker but not without lots of festive nastiness for the holidays. In the holiday spirit, enjoy the three music videos.

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BILL SINGER is a lawyer who represents securities-industry firms, individual registered persons, Wall Street whistleblowers, and defrauded public investors. For over three decades, Singer has represented clients before the American Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (formerly the NASD), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and in criminal investigations brought by various federal, state, and local prosecutors. He has the distinction of representing witnesses during Congressional investigations. In 2015, Singer achieved a significant award in excess of $1 million from the Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of a whistleblower client.

Singer is presently Of Counsel to a law firm and the publisher of the BrokeAndBroker.com Blog, which was rated as one of the industry's top eight destination websites and the leading legal/regulatory blog by "Investment News."

Before entering the private practice of law, Singer was employed in the Legal Department of Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co.; as a regulatory attorney with both the American Stock Exchange and the NASD (now FINRA); and as a Legal Counsel to Integrated Resources Asset Management. Singer was formerly Chief Counsel to the Financial Industry Association; General Counsel to the NASD Dissidents' Grassroots Movement; and General Counsel to the Independent Broker-Dealer Association. He was registered for a number of years as a Series 7 and Series 63 stockbroker.

Singer regularly appears as a commentator on television and radio, and is frequently quoted in the press. He is an outspoken critic of ineffective regulation and an advocate for economic and political sanity.